Tipología de relaciones productivas y posicionamiento estratégico de las empresas innovadoras andaluzas

RESUMEN: Este trabajo estudia cómo los diferentes tipos de relaciones productivas que las empresas innovadoras andaluzas entablan con su principal proveedor y cliente van más allá de acuerdos puramente económicos basados en el precio, ya que responden a un determinado posicionamiento estratégico que busca obtener ventajas competitivas basadas en la innovación y la calidad. Para ello se realizaron 172 encuestas a empresas innovadoras andaluzas cuyos datos fueron analizados mediante técnicas multivariantes (análisis factorial y clusters), Los resultados permitieron establecer una clasificación de diferentes relaciones de mercado en dichas firmas andaluzas, así como los principales factores que definen su comportamiento estratégico. ABSTRAC: In an opening context of our economies to the external markets, of a bigger global integration and competition the companies outline their strategies of competitiveness going beyond a productive simple restructuring and incorporating key element aspects like those of flexibility, differentiation, quality or innovation. Hence we consider necessary to analyze the paper that play the supply-client relationships of the Andalusian Innovators Industries (AII) inside a strategic positioning, since it has been demonstrated that the signatures that base their competitive advantage on the processes and innovative activities need to obtain an improvement starting from a narrow work relationship between suppliers and clients. When one speaks of supply-client relationships, frequently it associates to the neoclassical positions of Walras and Marshall over and above the purely economic or commercial aspects (Carrillo and González, 1999) where the agreements based on the quality and/or the price prevail. It is necessary to attack the analysis of these relationships with other technological´s (activities of I+D, innovation), strategic and space variables. Following the contributions of Yoguel and other authors (2001, 2003), it is denominated "weave productive" to the economic space formed for: a) a central company; b) the group of suppliers and clients; and c) the interrelations derived point of the transactions of purchase sale like of the flows of information, of experiences and of knowledge that circulate for the formal and informal constituted channels. In spite of the prevalence and the weight of the productive relationships as key element and configured of the exchanges supplier-client, we consider that the bonds among the agents can also be influenced by the relationships of trust, previous history, social linkings, etc. On the other hand, one can affirm that the companies don\'t only decide their competitive priorities for internal reasons, but also for externals reasons that have to do with the marketing strategies or of business. The essence of the strategy of the firms is positioning, that is to say, to take a position in front of the market. In this work we will be about checking if the classification of competitive strategies used by Spanos and Lioukas (2001), you can apply in AII. Taking like reference this distinction and applying the focus of Porter (1995) can deduce that AII has the possibility to develop different competitive strategies in function of if they seek to go to a wide market (leadership in costs or differentiation) segment or a segment peculiar of the market (focus). OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY The main objective of this article is to check the grade of linking of the competitive strategies of AII in the characteristics of the market relationships with its main suppliers and clients. Concretely, this main objective bears two interrelated tasks: a) i the first place, to analyze the AII productive relationships (client-supplier) to know what are the characteristics or variables that define them, and if there are different types of productive linkages between innovative firms in Andalusia with its key suppliers and customers of inputs; b) Second, to identify which they are the main factors that define the strategic positioning of AII to be able to relate them with the different cluster or groups of AII according to their supply-client relationships. To give answer to these questions it has been carried out work method based on the combination of clusters and factorial statistical multivariantes techniques. DATA USED. The data used were obtained by means of a specific questionnaire and for mean a survey to a representative sample of innovative companies in Andalusia during the year 2009. The questionnaire included a section denominated "Market Relationships" in which relative questions were included the main suppliers and clients of AII. Besides those mentioned variables, were introduced other variables in the statistical analysis about the "structural characteristics" of the interviewed firms; and over the "strategy of the company" according to their strategic positioning For the calculation and selection of the representative sample we leave of a total of 1919 companies that they represent the innovative firms settled down in Andalusia (according to the Directory of Andalusian Innovators Industries, DAII). The final sample ascended to 256 companies that were interviewed during the year 2009. Of all they analyze exclusively in this article the industrial firms, being obtained a sub-sample of 172 innovative industrial companies in Andalusia. CONCLUSIONS The results of the carried out analyses have allowed us to affirm that exit different groups of innovative Andalusian industries according to the main suppliers and clients. The differentiation among the identified groups of Andalusian industries is based, in fact, in a series of singular variables that they have allowed us to settle down which they are the key characteristics that define productive this relationships. Those variables they are of varied nature, being been able to identify three different dimensions on those that pivot the managerial analyzed relationships: a) A first dimension that we would denominate "internal", it makes reference to variables that describe characteristic structural or endogenous of the industrial firms analyzed as they are the billing, production capacity starting from activities of I+D and/or innovators and, directly related with this, the type of manufactured (new or improved) product. b) The second make reference variables related with the "external" dimension to the company and they refer to the intensity of the relationships with the supplier or the client, that is to say, to the dependence or importance of the same ones. c) The third of the dimensions is of space character and it is derived of the reach of the supply-client relationships geographical location. As the results they have shown, the localization space of main supplier-client is a factor of key differentiation among since AII the three big groups identified (A, B and C that are detailed but ahead) they are characterized fundamentally to have this links in Andalusia, outside of Andalusia or a combination of both (respectively). In consequence, it seems to be confirmed that, in general, the physical proximity is a decisive factor in the supply-client relationships of the Andalusian firms. As for the second of the objectives, we can affirm that the innovative Andalusian firms establish market relationships different with their main suppliers and clients in function of the basic variables of the three pointed dimensions giving place to the existence of different macro groups of behaviors in function of the productive exchanges that would be denominated: Group A: Regional market relationships (in Andalusia). Group B: External market relationships (outside of Andalusia). Group C: Mixed market relationships.